The title of this post is a reflection of the death of Hester Stewart, a medical student, which I will discuss in a bit.
As it's been a while, there no doubt has been a myriad of things that have happened, but time more than anything is a limiting factor. On a more 'boring' front, the reason is mainly I'm writing up my Masters project, that's it. Anways, I digress from the more interesting stuff.
Firstly Johanna is currently in the middle of her practical training for her degree; she's teaching over in a local secondary school, all about health and nutrition type stuff. Ok, to the outside possibly not so interesting right? Well, wrong. She got some amazing news a few days ago- offering her a job (starting after summer I think) at least until Xmas or June next year. To be offered a job for one is something special, especially as she's only supposed to be shadowing (or similar). She's taken lessons and got involved and it's already paid off, so a big congrats to her.
Having recently seen the London marathon results/pics etc, it's obviously weighed a little on our minds. The mental toughness is something which I believe is a big plus for me. 'Failure' is not an option, I will not be beat, that's as simple as it is. I'm trying to rub a little of this 'competitive' nature off on J, we shall see.....The target is anything under 4hrs, 3.45 would be an absolute result for me; I'm not a runner, my knee/ankle could be a problem, but pain is only temporary right? I've got way too much pride to just stop (unless my leg falls off, but then I'll crawl damn it!) and give up. Bring it on.
I'm still in the process of getting accepted on to my PhD. 'Formality' is a word I want to keep hearing, but seriously, it should be smooth sailing......
So back to the original title. It's not so much of a moan, more of a 'shocking' (yet not really) thing surrounding the death of this girl. As all parents/friends of anyone that dies (especially young) it's all complements, how great they are and what not. The same is true of this girl, the 'oh not my girl, she wouldnt do this and that' ' she's sensible' syndrone: so basically the story tells us of this 21 year old who has died apparently using a party drug. To make the story sympathetically worse by adding she was a medical student, so of course she MUST be clever etc and wouldn't use drugs....yeah, that works. Anyway, besides looking like a hippy (and being called Hester, a female by the way), I thought to myself, oh she's died of ecstacy or some sort of amphetamine or something, as the title says 'party drug'.
However, as I read on, turns out they found GBL in her system- what is that I hear you ask? Well it stands for gamma-Butyrolactone. Sounds ominous already. Well it is. So the poor mother of this now deceased child has called to the Government to ban this drug. Ok, so whats the problem? Well unlike cannabis or some 'normal' drug most punk kids get high on, you know the usual ones you hear about in the news. I thought so what is this GBL? Apparently illegal in the States and Canada, the mother, seemingly disgraced that this 'drug' is in society wants a ban, as mentioned before. The funny thing about it all, that GBL is a solvent found in stain removers, superglue removers, cleaning agents, paint strippers, you name it. Why the hell would you take this?! How can the mother ask for a formal inquiry why it's not banned in the UK?! What the f**k is going on in this world that an apparently 'intelligent' person doesn't know why its probably not a good idea to drink things found in paint stripper?! Honestly!!!! How can the mother be so mad it's not banned?! There are millions of chemicals that a monkey knows you shouldn't drink. If you drank enough shampoo you'd die from it: 'The government must ban this terrible hair cleaning product'.......christ alive!!!
It wasn't long ago, in the prime of my youth that we did the occasional stupid thing- have a beer or a few, knowing we weren't 'legally' allowed, you know, these type of things. The so called bar was never that high, I never did drugs, I certainly never wanted to drink chemicals that cleaned toilets, but youth of today have really pushed the boat out. When getting drunk (and possibly high nowadays) is not enough what do you resort to? The latest thing I knew about was people getting high on horse tranquilizers- again, what the hell are you thinking? Hopefully this is a case that she was drugged, the old slip it in to her drink type thing, to even salvage a bit of her pride or even family pride, as this is just bizarre. For her mother to make such a big deal about making the specific chemical illegal is beyond me, nothing about thinking it is normal to drink these things?!
It begs the question to what is next? Snorting hoover dust? Eating superglue? Drinking toilet cleaner? One thing for sure if drinking chemicals in paint thinners etc is 'cool', I'm definitely out of the loop......
As it's been a while, there no doubt has been a myriad of things that have happened, but time more than anything is a limiting factor. On a more 'boring' front, the reason is mainly I'm writing up my Masters project, that's it. Anways, I digress from the more interesting stuff.
Firstly Johanna is currently in the middle of her practical training for her degree; she's teaching over in a local secondary school, all about health and nutrition type stuff. Ok, to the outside possibly not so interesting right? Well, wrong. She got some amazing news a few days ago- offering her a job (starting after summer I think) at least until Xmas or June next year. To be offered a job for one is something special, especially as she's only supposed to be shadowing (or similar). She's taken lessons and got involved and it's already paid off, so a big congrats to her.
Having recently seen the London marathon results/pics etc, it's obviously weighed a little on our minds. The mental toughness is something which I believe is a big plus for me. 'Failure' is not an option, I will not be beat, that's as simple as it is. I'm trying to rub a little of this 'competitive' nature off on J, we shall see.....The target is anything under 4hrs, 3.45 would be an absolute result for me; I'm not a runner, my knee/ankle could be a problem, but pain is only temporary right? I've got way too much pride to just stop (unless my leg falls off, but then I'll crawl damn it!) and give up. Bring it on.
I'm still in the process of getting accepted on to my PhD. 'Formality' is a word I want to keep hearing, but seriously, it should be smooth sailing......
So back to the original title. It's not so much of a moan, more of a 'shocking' (yet not really) thing surrounding the death of this girl. As all parents/friends of anyone that dies (especially young) it's all complements, how great they are and what not. The same is true of this girl, the 'oh not my girl, she wouldnt do this and that' ' she's sensible' syndrone: so basically the story tells us of this 21 year old who has died apparently using a party drug. To make the story sympathetically worse by adding she was a medical student, so of course she MUST be clever etc and wouldn't use drugs....yeah, that works. Anyway, besides looking like a hippy (and being called Hester, a female by the way), I thought to myself, oh she's died of ecstacy or some sort of amphetamine or something, as the title says 'party drug'.
However, as I read on, turns out they found GBL in her system- what is that I hear you ask? Well it stands for gamma-Butyrolactone. Sounds ominous already. Well it is. So the poor mother of this now deceased child has called to the Government to ban this drug. Ok, so whats the problem? Well unlike cannabis or some 'normal' drug most punk kids get high on, you know the usual ones you hear about in the news. I thought so what is this GBL? Apparently illegal in the States and Canada, the mother, seemingly disgraced that this 'drug' is in society wants a ban, as mentioned before. The funny thing about it all, that GBL is a solvent found in stain removers, superglue removers, cleaning agents, paint strippers, you name it. Why the hell would you take this?! How can the mother ask for a formal inquiry why it's not banned in the UK?! What the f**k is going on in this world that an apparently 'intelligent' person doesn't know why its probably not a good idea to drink things found in paint stripper?! Honestly!!!! How can the mother be so mad it's not banned?! There are millions of chemicals that a monkey knows you shouldn't drink. If you drank enough shampoo you'd die from it: 'The government must ban this terrible hair cleaning product'.......christ alive!!!
It wasn't long ago, in the prime of my youth that we did the occasional stupid thing- have a beer or a few, knowing we weren't 'legally' allowed, you know, these type of things. The so called bar was never that high, I never did drugs, I certainly never wanted to drink chemicals that cleaned toilets, but youth of today have really pushed the boat out. When getting drunk (and possibly high nowadays) is not enough what do you resort to? The latest thing I knew about was people getting high on horse tranquilizers- again, what the hell are you thinking? Hopefully this is a case that she was drugged, the old slip it in to her drink type thing, to even salvage a bit of her pride or even family pride, as this is just bizarre. For her mother to make such a big deal about making the specific chemical illegal is beyond me, nothing about thinking it is normal to drink these things?!
It begs the question to what is next? Snorting hoover dust? Eating superglue? Drinking toilet cleaner? One thing for sure if drinking chemicals in paint thinners etc is 'cool', I'm definitely out of the loop......
